It Always Gets Colder Without You
by amarettozbad
Summary: Quick One-shot but willing to do more if it's wanted. Post-TLJ Rey and Kylo/Ben share a quiet moment when their force bond decides spooning is on the cards. There are worse ways to wake up than in your crushes bed.


It was cold.

Fucking freezing even compared to the damp, penetrating chill she endured every night on Ahch-To. The crisp air was as unforgiving as it was unwelcoming to skin so accustomed to blistering heat of Jakku.

But asking for extra blankets or clothing just any admittance of weakness in this hellish abyss of space was out of the question. These people had lost _everything_. She could deal with one more sleepless night.

Rey turned onto her side, huddled under a small distressed brown shawl that produced more dust than heat on her bunker in the falcon. They had landed on Vector-T97, a moon so small it possessed neither an atmosphere nor a real title, but it was desolate and uninhabited which was exactly what the general was hoping for when rest was required of all the Falcons passengers. While Poe had led a group of eager explorers off on a fool's quest for allies further out in the outer-rim territories, Rey remained. She had opted to stay behind under the guise of honing her skills and studying the Jedi texts she had smuggled out of Luke's shrine. In reality she was just tired, tired of chasing the endless hope these rebels put in their next goal. Every plan was the masterplan, every hero their ultimate saviour. Luke Skywalker had sacrificed himself entirely and yet the fight was _still_ not over. She longed for the simple pleasure of quiet and the company of Finn, her first friend and closest confidant who was now investing all his energies into the engineer that had saved his life on Crait. Despite the now dwindling numbers of the resistance people were everywhere, surrounding her always. But in this room, she found herself alone again. Naturally.

Well, at least, she was.

"What the actual fuck"

 _Slam_

Rey let out a quiet shriek as she felt herself suddenly catapulted off the bed onto the cold metal railing of the floor. With the wind thoroughly knocked out of her she scrambled to her feet, the whirring buzz of a lightsabre and its glow reflecting on a hauntingly familiar face there to greet her from the opposite side of the bed.

"I thought this wouldn't happen anymore."

She couldn't tell if the unusual cadence in Kylo Ren's voice was from shock or disgust.

"Clearly Snoke's lies continued to the very moment of his departure. Why are you shivering?"

"It's cold in here Kylo. Now please lower your weapon and get the _hell_ out of my bedroom." Rey snarled over her words, grabbing her blanket and wrapping it around herself in the most ferocious manner she could. She watched as he deactivated his lightsaber, looking almost confused at its presence in his hand. Kylo Ren took a step back to find his back pressed against the cool glass now frosted over from the moons icy surface.

"When did we switch back to Kylo then? Is inconsistency another fine trait I should add to your inconceivably long list of personality flaws; along with pride and poor judgement?" He smirked, fidgeting with his gloves while making his way slowly around the bed stepping carelessly onto a small piece of red rock she had saved from Crait, crushing it beneath his foot.

"Ben Solo isn't here for me to call on him. He's disappeared again under your rage and hatred for everything that's good, everything that's light-"

"Spare me the lecture for this evening Rey. I wasn't the one who left."

A slight waver in the barrier around his mind allows her insight to the turmoil within. And there is pain. Sadness and pain and loss behind his dark eyes and for just a second, just a moment, something more. A taste of passion and emotion and _need,_ lingering and hidden away where his darkness could not cloud it.

He does not want to be Kylo to her. The idea that he should have to prove himself worthy of that name to be drawn from her lips seems abhorrent, impossible to the man standing before her. Rey is almost afraid of the power now beholden to her. If she gives in to his desire, his _need_ for her to have faith in himand keep pursuing his inner light then he may grow complacent in his struggle toward it. But hostility could easily push him further in the opposite direction.

"If Ben were the one to have offered himself to me on the finalizer I would never have left him. If he had asked for my help and my friendship I would have stayed so gladly with him. You didn't do that, you cannot ask me to rule over a galaxy I've never really been a part of. You can't just tell me to run with you and expect me to leave everyone I love behind."

Breathless, Rey closed the gap he had left between them so only inches of freezing air were separating them from one another.

" _Ben_."

"Yes." He responded, almost instantly as if he had been waiting for her to say his name again so desperate for the sound of it.

"I don't ever want to hurt you again. So please, don't ever make me."

Ben Solo stood before her. Finally, the sneering sarcastic mask of his alter ego had vanished leaving only a tearful, shivering boy in it's place. Rey reached a now numb hand out, up to his jaw carefully caressing the stubble that lined his face to rest with a thumb along each short black sideburn, fingers lightly on the back of his neck.

"I don't ever want to run from you again either."

Rey's words were almost whispers, trailing off as his face came down slowly to lay the softest of kisses on her forehead. They stood together, faces pressed together and eyes closed just exploring the sensation of their closeness. Rey felt every molecule every atom in his body and her own, alight with the force and pure energy just by holding one another through their unexplained bond. It was overwhelming and easy all at once and all-consuming yet simple embrace. Ben opened his eyes slowly, as if in fear when open Rey would not still be standing there with him. Gazing down at this impossible woman before him no politics, religion or order dared even exist to tear them apart.

"I'm sorry but I am so fucking freezing right now Ben I need my blanket." Rey almost tripped over herself as Ben let escape the first and arguably most adorable sounding laughs at her incessant shivering. With one step he crossed the room and swung the cloak from his back wrapping it around Rey and her blanket, sweeping her into his arms and onto the bed holding her flush against his chest.

"Are you warmer now? Are you happy, me giving you the very clothes off my back?"

Rey furrowed deeper into his massive form, nodding dozily against him as she revelled in the absence of icy sheets for the first time in days.

"Space is so much colder when you're alone."

"Rey," Ben's voice reverberated around his chest sounding even deeper and richer than as it always was, "You aren't alone anymore. We aren't alone."

The gentle tug signalling the end of their force bonding did not coming until Rey was sound asleep in Ben's arms. She did not notice as he disappeared around her, or whispered a fleeting goodbye.

She did not notice the room becoming colder just because he wasn't there.


End file.
